Donnelly Left Frustrated

Ciaran Donnelly was left frustrated after the youth team let a two-goal half-time lead slip to draw 2-2 against Wigan Athletic.

Goals from Christian N’Guessan and Ralph Chea gave Blackpool a comfortable lead but the Latics hit back through Tom Powell and Matty Taylor to snatch a point.

Speaking post-match, here's what the academy manager had to say...

An excellent first half performance.

It was certainly a game of two halves. In the first-half we were absolutely terrific, probably as well as I’ve ever seen a youth team play. Everything we ever worked on was right and it was really good. We could have been more than 2-0 up at half-time.

A frustrating second-half.

We told the players that Wigan would come at us in the second-half and if they got an early goal then they’d be right back in it, which proved to be exactly the case. They rightfully got an equaliser in the end because their pressure told in the second-half and overall I’m really disappointed.

The difficult weather conditions.

The weather conditions were difficult but we could still play our football because the pitch was lovely, but the thing that me and Murphs were looking at was their character. We knew that there would be difficult stages of the game with the conditions and unfortunately again we’ve not come through that. That’s what is disappointing because some of the players aren’t learning the lessons that we’ve been trying to preach to them for 18 months now.

The challenges ahead.

For the next few months until February, it will be a different kind of football compared to the summer months where the pitches and weather are nice. Now it will be difficult to play nice football and teams can use the conditions and pitches to make it hard for you. Often matches turn into a battle and it’s about the players’ character and if they’re willing to roll their sleeves up and battle through things. At the moment we’re a team that can play lovely football but we haven’t got that resilience, which is something we need to improve on quickly.